FMM (Find Meaning to be Meaningful)
Ancient Indian scriptures have described 4 Purusharthas or goals of human life as:-
- DHARMA – Righteousness, Duty and Moral Values
- ARTHA – Wealth & Prosperity
- KAMA – Worldly Desires & Pleasure
- MOKSHA – Liberation
These 4 principles are somehow related to 4 stages of life also. During childhood we spend most of our time to get education and as we grow younger, we learn dharma and moral values of life. Early adulthood is spent in earning prosperity and enjoying pleasures. And mature adulthood is devoted to spirituality and attaining liberation. Over a span of life, meaning changes. And the purpose of life is evolved and elevated.
If there is shortcoming in learning right values at the early /education stage, one is going to neither create prosperity righteously nor enjoy it morally. At the student age what we learn through senses. At the later stage we have to make sense of what we have sensed. At every age and every stage we have to find out meaning of our life and make life meaningful.
When we enter into the phase of work and family, we start creating resources, earn money, build wealth and relationships, gain name & fame. In others words we start building means and means have power to make you meaningful as well as meaningless. If the means are accumulated for selfish motto, your life become meaningless but if those are created for benefits of others, your life becomesmeaningful.
The problem with most of us is- we become so busy in creating wealth and enjoying pleasure that we forget Dharma which we have learned while taking education and end up in making our life meaningless.
5 tips to find meaning and make life meaningful:
- While pursuing ARTHA and KAMA, do not forget DHARMA.
- Ultimate purpose of life is to get liberation, everything else is intermediary.
- Purpose of life gets evolved and elevated as our level of wisdom increases.
- Do not worry about liberation; keep doing your KARMA righteously.
- Forget about the past & don’t worry about future. Just live in the present moment with right moral values.